Lawsuit Against Atlanta
Braves is Way Off Base: Suing, not Baseball, is Becoming Our National
Pastime

by Amy Ridenour

In the greed-focused world of American personal injury lawyers,
no good deed goes unpunished.

Take, for instance, a simple act of kindness by Atlanta Braves
outfielder Andruw Jones. In an era when utility infielders make
more in one season than Willie Mays did in his entire career,
and often act as arrogantly as a British prince, Jones did something
nice for the fans the other day. He caught a ball in the outfield
and tossed it over his shoulder into the stands, so a fan could
have a coveted souvenir. Now a woman is suing both Jones and
the Braves, claiming through her personal injury lawyer that the
ball struck and injured her face.1

If she is successful - and who'd bet against it? - some sympathetic
jury will award her a few million dollars. Her lawyer will take
his standard 25 to 40% cut plus expenses. And they'll walk happily
out of the courtroom, case closed.

Case closed perhaps, but the game will have just started.
Personal injury lawyers in all 30 major league cities, like pigs
on an agri-business hog farm at feeding time, will start watching
for similar incidents in their hometowns.

A prediction: Major League Baseball will react quickly to any
surge in lawsuits. The first and most logical step likely will
be to impose a ban on players flinging baseballs into the stands,
thereby severing one of the few remaining links between pampered
multi-millionaire athletes and the millions of hard-working fans
whose ticket purchases pay their salaries.

Another prediction: That move, drastic as it may seem, won't
stop the personal injury lawyers. It's not hard to imagine that
they'll respond by running ads in sports sections of newspapers
seeking people who've been victimized by a foul ball, an errant
throw or the splintered end of a broken bat. Eventually, Major
League Baseball may have to encircle its ballparks with walls
of wire mesh or 50-foot partitions of tempered glass similar to
those that protect hockey fans from 100-mile per hour slapshots.

Baseball will not be totally ruined by such developments, but
it certainly will lose some of its appeal for any Little Leaguer
or adult who ever took a mitt to the stadium with the hope of
shagging a foul ball.

This is a frivolous lawsuit. Baseball public address announcers
frequently warn the crowd about the possibility of balls landing
in stands. The warnings usually are repeated in print on tickets
and in programs, and flashed on scoreboards as well. No one in
their right mind would go to Camden Yards or Wrigley Field or
Busch Stadium or Fenway Park and not expect a ball, whether fair
or foul, to be lofted or lined their way. For most fans that's
part of the thrill of baseball, along with an ice-cold Bud, a
hot dog, peanuts and Cracker Jack.

That thrill is about to vanish - thanks to avaricious lawyers
ready to sue at the drop of a rosin bag.

Baseball is not the only target under attack. Wherever there's
a possibility of human error or a legal payoff, lawyers swiftly
swarm by the hundreds, like sharks off the coast of central Florida.
A man orders a tattoo artist to put a misspelled word on his
arm - and later, sues. A customer learns his BMW was scratched
and repainted by the dealer - sues. Parents discover that their
children like collecting baseball and hockey cards - and sue.
A health club patron slips on soap in the shower - sues. A
drunken woman falls off a barstool - her heirs sue. A man wants
his wife to stop smoking - sues.2

At some point Americans are going to have to make their voices
heard and demand that our elected representatives step up to the
plate and pass tort reform legislation that reins in the recent
surge of runaway lawsuits. To accomplish that objective, they'll
have to speak louder than the $124 million that personal injury
lawyers clanked into political campaign coffers in election-year
2000, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

If the case filed against Andruw Jones and the Atlanta Braves
is any indication, American voters better do it sooner rather
than later. Most of the people I know can live without a tattoo
or even a sleek, new Beemer. But allowing lawyers to water-down
the national pastime into an insipid and sterile experience borders
on un-American.